Quotes of the day

posted at 8:31 pm on April 26, 2014 by Allahpundit

Bundy is just the lightning rod of the moment, just as Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty fame was before him, and Paula Deen before that.

Meanwhile Racism 2.0 is busily working in the shadows, gerrymandering away voting rights and creating legislation that makes pre-emptively shooting dead a young black man who makes you nervous synonymous with standing one’s ground. The longer the media allow ignorant relics like Bundy to continue to hog the spotlight — and the public points at him as the face of conservative racism — the longer the current incarnation can go unchecked…

During the height of the recession, according to an analysis in The American Prospect, 33 states increased spending on prisons while decreasing spending on education, and we’re to believe the disproportionate number of minorities in jail is a coincidence?

That’s what’s so interesting, not about this racist moron but about the Republicans who supported him until he revealed his views on slavery…

What if, instead of being a right-wing rancher who flouted the law, Bundy was the leader of a left-wing group of college radicals who occupied a government building? Ronald Reagan notoriously said of Berkeley protestors, “If there is to be a bloodbath, let’s get it over with. No more appeasement!”

Or what if Bundy had been the leader of the New Black Panther Party? What if he and his followers had, for 20 years, brazenly stolen from the federal government, refused to obey court orders and threatened police with guns? Would Hannity have been duped into defending him? Fat chance.

The other delusion in Bundy’s comments is that Africans who became slaves were lucky to be brought into the shelter of this country’s wealth, as if they had arrived in a mansion already built. They made the South rich. Lincoln, in his Second Inaugural, rightly argued that what the Confederates lost on the battlefield was “all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil.” They weren’t here to play music on porches until someone was kind enough to show them “how to pick cotton.” The astounding conflation that Bundy makes is black people working with black people enslaved. Does no other alternative, such as a decently paid job, occur to him? Could someone who claims that the federal government can’t constrain his unbridled spirit have so limited an imagination?

This is where Bundy exposes more broadly held, and corrosive, assumptions: that poverty is a matter of laziness, or, as it is put in polite society, “a certain culture.” This, again, is where one cannot reassure oneself that Bundy is simply on the fringe. Just get off that porch, stretch out your arms and legs, inquire politely about cotton, and all will be well. It doesn’t work that way. In America, it never has.

***

Casual, careless and incorrect references to slavery, much like blithe references to Nazi Germany, do violence to the memory of those who endured it, or were lost to it, and to their descendants.

Romantic revisionism of this most ghastly enterprise cannot stand. It must be met, vigilantly and unequivocally, with the strongest rebuttal. Slaves dishonored in life must not have their memories disfigured by revisionist history.

America committed this great sin, its original sin, and there will be no absolution by alteration. America must live with the memory of what its forefathers — even its founding fathers — did. It must sit with this history, the unvarnished truth of it, until it has reconciled with it.

***

Conservatives largely see racism as racial hatred, treating people as groups rather than individuals and then displaying animus toward members of those groups. Discrimination is deliberately treating individuals differently on the basis of race.

Liberals tend to see racism as a desire to preserve a socioeconomic structure that grew out of slavery and segregation, maintaining a privileged status for some and a disadvantaged status for others. Discrimination is anything that has a negative disparate impact on protected minorities.

There is an element of truth to the liberal view. Obviously, the effects of slavery and an impoverishing racial caste system are going to linger for generations. The descendants of those victimized by human bondage or Jim Crow are going to inherit less social and economic capital than those who were not victimized.

And while a plausible case can be made be made that more recent phenomena—like the decline of marriage and the nuclear family in large parts of the black community or the disappearance of work in many communities—do more than racism to perpetuate this inequality today, these things cannot be hermetically sealed off from the injustices of the past.

The problem is that separating individuals into victim and oppressor groups has the potential to create fresh new injustices. It also obscures other facts, such as the high number of affluent minorities and poor whites living in a country where Barack Obama is president and David Duke is a pathetic joke. “White privilege” is too often used merely as a synonym for “shut up.”

***

I think it was Eugene Volokh who once wrote that sometimes societies panic over the things they have the fewest reasons to worry about. In Victorian England, there was widespread concern about the loosening of sexual mores at a time of widespread chastity. I’ve long believed that America is suffering from a similar panic about bigotry and racism. Yes, yes, bigotry and racism still exist (See, Bundy, Cliven). But they are arguably at the lowest ebb in American history.

And yet, there’s a sense of almost witch-hunty panic over “white supremacy” in our culture. I think there are lots of reasons for this. One explanation: When you have a black president and then discover that the presidency isn’t nearly as powerful as you thought or hoped it would be (or that the specific black president isn’t that great at the job) the cognitive dissonance pushes you to develop conspiratorial theories about the “real” reason for his failures.

Another reason is that liberalism hasn’t figured out a moral vocabulary that doesn’t depend on the fight against slavery and Jim Crow. I am amazed how, on every campus I go to, no matter what the subject, liberal kids — not to mention their professors and my debate partners — can only internalize and conceptualize arguments about political morality and action in relation to the black civil-rights narrative. That’s a hugely important narrative. But it is not a tesseract providing an infinite and invincible moral power to every claim under the sun.

***

As we’ve learned once again, there are, quite frequently, people who believe and say reprehensible things — or even take foolish actions — who nevertheless find themselves facing an unjust or excessive government response. Often we find out about the person’s challenges with the government well before we find out anything about that person’s beliefs or character, and in the resulting rush to stand on principle we can inadvertently, prematurely, and often wrongly elevate the person…

Let’s be clear, one is not giving aid and comfort to the Left when one condemns foolish and reprehensible behavior by those whose cause-of-the-moment you might sympathize with or support. Nor does such criticism render a person a “RINO.” But one does give aid and comfort to the Left when one embraces not just the principle but the deeply-flawed person — especially when that person has revealed themselves to not just suffer from the normal flaws that afflict all of us but from deep character defects that bring shame to their allies.

And, yes, I know there is a double standard. After all, a man like Al Sharpton has not only made racially reprehensible statements, he has incited deadly violence. Yet he has an MSNBC show and is a friend of the president. A man like Bill Ayers is an admitted domestic terrorist. Yet he is now a respected member of the Left establishment, he helped our president get his political start, and even now he is the toast of Leftists on college campuses around the country.

[I]f what the Bureau of Land Management is doing is wrong, the fact that Cliven Bundy is a racist sexist homophobe whateverphobe doesn’t make it right – any more than at Ruby Ridge FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi shooting Vicki Weaver in the back of the head as she was cradling her ten-month-old baby and running away from him is made right by the fact that she allegedly had “white supremacist” sympathies. As I wrote last week, I’ve little doubt that, in the era before cellphone video, the bureaucratic enforcers would have been happy to off Bundy and then come up with a reason why it doesn’t matter. At Waco, there were supposedly children being abused. So Generalissimo Janet Reno killed them all, and now they’re not being abused. In that sense, Mr Bundy is a lucky man: He got to live, and to trash his own reputation rather than having the feds do it for him…

I’m not sure terms like “left” or “right” are very useful here: Communism is assumed to be “left-wing” and Nazism “right-wing”, and my former colleague Jonah Goldberg has written an entire book on that, named for a coinage of H G Wells’: “liberal fascism”. But on the matter of “tolerant” “centrist” fascism: In the Twentieth Century, a nation of great beauty and culture embraced Fascism, and a backward peasant society embraced Communism, and the most evolved civilization in Europe embraced Nazism. And observers still wonder why the great anglophone democracies were almost alone in not going down this path. I think the reason’s simpler than it seems: No one – Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Mao, Franco – had devised a form of totalitarianism appealing enough to seduce them. Now they have. As the Bundy example illustrates, a free people will cheerfully abandon bedrock principles like equality before the law if state power is being used to torment a racist or a homophobe or someone whose very presence offends against the citizenry’s sense of its own virtue. Whether or not this is a middle-of-the-road fascism, it’s certainly a very flattering strain: what, after all, is wrong with benign despotism in the cause of preventing “climate change” or transphobia – or ensuring that Nevada’s desert tortoise has an area the size of the United Kingdom to gambol and frolic in?

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Good. This Donald Sterling’s comments make Cliven Bundy’s clumsy remarks sound pretty tame. And Sterling is a big donor. All democrats need to be asked if they ever received a donation from Donald Sterling, and if so, whether they will return it. This is California, so we start with Diane Feinstein and Barbara Boxer.

Pope Francis’ Homily for the Canonization of John XXIII and John Paul II
April 27, 2014
**************

Here below is the full text in English of Pope Francis’ homily at the mass of Canonization of Pope John Paul II and Pope John XXIII:

At the heart of this Sunday, which concludes the Octave of Easter and which John Paul II wished to dedicate to Divine Mercy, are the glorious wounds of the risen Jesus.

He had already shown those wounds when he first appeared to the Apostles on the very evening of that day following the Sabbath, the day of the resurrection. But Thomas was not there that evening, and when the others told him that they had seen the Lord, he replied that unless he himself saw and touched those wounds, he would not believe. A week later, Jesus appeared once more to the disciples gathered in the Upper Room, and Thomas was present; Jesus turned to him and told him to touch his wounds. Whereupon that man, so straightforward and accustomed to testing everything personally, knelt before Jesus with the words: “My Lord and my God!” (Jn 20:28).

The wounds of Jesus are a scandal, a stumbling block for faith, yet they are also the test of faith. That is why on the body of the risen Christ the wounds never pass away: they remain, for those wounds are the enduring sign of God’s love for us. They are essential for believing in God. Not for believing that God exists, but for believing that God is love, mercy and faithfulness. Saint Peter, quoting Isaiah, writes to Christians: “by his wounds you have been healed” (1 Pet 2:24, cf. Is 53:5).

John XXIII and John Paul II were not afraid to look upon the wounds of Jesus, to touch his torn hands and his pierced side. They were not ashamed of the flesh of Christ, they were not scandalized by him, by his cross; they did not despise the flesh of their brother (cf. Is 58:7), because they saw Jesus in every person who suffers and struggles. These were two men of courage, filled with the parrhesia of the Holy Spirit, and they bore witness before the Church and the world to God’s goodness and mercy.

They were priests, bishops and popes of the twentieth century. They lived through the tragic events of that century, but they were not overwhelmed by them. For them, God was more powerful; faith was more powerful – faith in Jesus Christ the Redeemer of man and the Lord of history; the mercy of God, shown by those five wounds, was more powerful; and more powerful too was the closeness of Mary our Mother.

In these two men, who looked upon the wounds of Christ and bore witness to his mercy, there dwelt a living hope and an indescribable and glorious joy (1 Pet 1:3,8). The hope and the joy which the risen Christ bestows on his disciples, the hope and the joy which nothing and no one can take from them. The hope and joy of Easter, forged in the crucible of self-denial, self-emptying, utter identification with sinners, even to the point of disgust at the bitterness of that chalice. Such were the hope and the joy which these two holy popes had received as a gift from the risen Lord and which they in turn bestowed in abundance upon the People of God, meriting our eternal gratitude.

This hope and this joy were palpable in the earliest community of believers, in Jerusalem, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles (cf. 2:42-47). It was a community which lived the heart of the Gospel, love and mercy, in simplicity and fraternity.

This is also the image of the Church which the Second Vatican Council set before us. John XXIII and John Paul II cooperated with the Holy Spirit in renewing and updating the Church in keeping with her pristine features, those features which the saints have given her throughout the centuries. Let us not forget that it is the saints who give direction and growth to the Church. In convening the Council, John XXIII showed an exquisite openness to the Holy Spirit. He let himself be led and he was for the Church a pastor, a servant-leader. This was his great service to the Church; he was the pope of openness to the Spirit.

In his own service to the People of God, John Paul II was the pope of the family. He himself once said that he wanted to be remembered as the pope of the family. I am particularly happy to point this out as we are in the process of journeying with families towards the Synod on the family. It is surely a journey which, from his place in heaven, he guides and sustains.

May these two new saints and shepherds of God’s people intercede for the Church, so that during this two-year journey toward the Synod she may be open to the Holy Spirit in pastoral service to the family. May both of them teach us not to be scandalized by the wounds of Christ and to enter ever more deeply into the mystery of divine mercy, which always hopes and always forgives, because it always loves.

If you are planning to watch the canonization events it will be useful to know that the Vatican has released a liturgy guide that give background on the two popes and then walks you through what is happening during the canonization.

“You go to a Republican event and it’s all white people—not because we’re excluding anybody, but because we just haven’t done a good enough job encouraging people to come into our party.”
– Rand Paul

So why are Republicans supporting Bundy again?

Brock Robamney on April 27, 2014 at 7:28 AM

Mr. Paul used an inaccurate description of the problem. His prescription here stated is too simplistic. He seems to be saying that what Republicans need to do is “reach out to minorities” or something trite like that. It’s a bit more complicated than that.

The reason CONSERVATIVES are supporting Bundy is because of the underlying principles of proper Constitutional governance involved. If the Republican Party was a bit wiser they would use this incident to illustrate the differences between them and the Democrats but, instead, in fear once again of being labeled racists, which Paul is here doing, they will run away from a golden opportunity to REALLY “reach out to minorities”.

“You go to a Republican event and it’s all white people—not because we’re excluding anybody, but because we just haven’t done a good enough job encouraging people to come into our party.” – Rand Paul

This is what Dixie sounds like when Rand Paul whistles it.

The federal govt gives tons of tax money to myriad organizations that support the Democrat Party’s agenda. The press and entertainment industry is 90% in the tank for the Democrat Party. Half the country is on the dole. The southern border is a GOP-approved sieve for future Democrats. Universities are pooping out newly minted Democrats by the millions each year. And so on and on.

The GOP is helpless to counteract this through minority recruitment pandering.

ons of Islam everywhere, the jihad is a duty – to establish the rule of Allah on earth and to liberate your countries and yourselves from America’s domination and its Zionist allies, it is your battle – either victory or martyrdom.

Morning COL and WC and to all others except Axe cause it is always night in his world. Wow, QOTD over 1,000 two nights in a row….good stuff.

Just back from Hope Depot and Wally World and eating last nights supper. I seemed to have drank my supper last night. Chuckle! Grilled fish is a bit much for most folks, but I never learned to do breakfast in the traditional sense. Well, eaten my share of a proper English breakfast and sobhaneh. Love haleem in the morning also.

Will finish up reading QOTD then outside for yard work.

Wish you all a fine Sunday and hope to type some more nonsense tonight. Beer is on ice and free again.

Conservatives Should Not support Bundy. I don’t. If the issue is the BLM seizing land, then you should be supporting Greg Abbott in Texas. Not a racist in Nevada, because he refuses to pay grazing fees. But when you associate yourself with him, you lose. I can see the Ads now. Kay Hagan, Mary Landfill and all the red state democrats will associate Bundy with the GOP and you will all fall in the trap. Supporting slavery is what killed the Whigs, and if you support his slavery comments, the GOP will die too.

You’ve already fallen into the trap. You have accepted that Bundy is a racist based on the testimony of the NYT. You’ve imagined all the terrible future humiliations and defeats that might follow if we don’t denounce Bundy and all his works. Don’t you see that if it wasn’t race it would be something else?

Under the spreading chestnut tree
I sold you and you sold me
There lie they, and here lie we
Under the spreading chestnut tree

The thing about grazing fees and Bundy: he simply stopped obeying the law when the BLM was using its legal authority to destroy cattle ranching in his area. It’s called “civil disobedience.”

I live in Beaufort, North Carolina. We’ve got a lot of independent commercial fishermen in this area who feel harassed and harried by policies that come from BOTH political parties. The Demorlocks support the government clamping down on fishing (to save the sea turtles, who are flourishing) and the Republican’ts are supporting the recreational fishermen, locally dubbed “dingbatters,” who are competing for the same fishing waters, and are constantly lobbying for commercial fishing to be restricted.

All over the country, rules and regulations have been building since the 1920s to make it harder and harder for 40 acre farmers to survive, while big corporate farms thrive.

So yeah, it’s a good idea to stand with Bundy. Not because he has any legal ground to do so, but because he has every moral ground to do so.

1. Bundy, ignorant of the nature of slavery, thought slaves were free to grow to gardens and raise families. Indeed, slavery is bad because it treats men like farm animals and prevents them from pursuing “happiness” (fulfillment, by way of Aristotle’s definition).
2. However, Bundy very clearly understands what he observes: people living in government projects, whose self-destructive lifestyle is enabled by liberals using public funds, are not happy. It’s not good for them. Nor is it good for anyone else.
3. To which extent I said that it would be worse for them to be slaves, but better for society as a whole if they were slaves. At least that moral evil has several useful benefits: lower crime rates, less money spent subsidizing foolishness, and more productivity. However, it would be MUCH better for everyone if they were free men who were taking care of themselves.
4. The point as I see it, is the Equality Clause in the Declaration of Independence. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, including the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Every law and policy needs to be measured against that creed. Every politician should be required to understand and articulate why Jefferson regarded these truths to be self-evident. Hint: we’re “Homo Sapiens,” not “Homo Sentiens.”
5. On the whole, conservatives have failed to addresses the struggles of minorities and immigrants in terms of that creed, and have failed to articulate how the Proglodyte policies have turned many people into Eloi, both dependent on and prey to the Morlocks. Ann Coulter rails against letting uneducated poor immigrants into the country. How stupidly un-American that is. It would be bad to let them in, or allow the illegals to stay, given the welfare state. Without the welfare state, we OUGHT to revert back to the Ellis Island model. Eager immigrants keep the Dream alive. And I guess that’s what the GOP is NOT selling: America. The Creed. The Dream. That’s what it’s all about. We need to sell the American Revolution and what it means, and expose the Proglodytes as selling the French Revolution and what that really means.

He’s a rancher not a wordsmith. Clive Bundy made a simple observation “It looks to me like they are still slaves, they just traded the Plantation for the Projects, but they are still slaves – to liberalism.” “The ‘Great Society’ has destroyed far more BLACK FAMILIES than slavery ever could and the abortion rate in the black community is nothing short of criminal genocide that would make Hitler blush.” BUT once he said the word negro, that was it, everybody went ape$hit and didn’t listen to a thing he said. All he was saying was – If you can’t understand why I want nothing to do with the Government, just look at what it has done for them. I want no part of that and I’m ashamed it was done with my tax dollars – in my name.

This is where Bundy exposes more broadly held, and corrosive, assumptions: that poverty is a matter of laziness, or, as it is put in polite society, “a certain culture.”

Bundy said they didn’t have anything to DO. He didn’t say they were lazy. But he did say Mexicans were very hard workers. So I guess according to ‘conservative apologists’ here at HA, that might be a claim American blacks are lazy.
Having seen the video & heard the man’s words in their full context, I never came away with him being racist nor accusing blacks of being lazy.
And using the word Negro & colored people to describe blacks in America is not racist. My own grandfather born in the mid 1920’s in Southern IN used those words to describe American blacks. And he was not racist or cruel nor unkind to others who were different from him. He worked construction with Hispanics & Blacks alike after he got out of the Army. He never said a disparaging word against others of a different race, & yet Negro & colored folk came out of his mouth when he described them.
You cannot use today’s lens of scrutiny & values & massaged & corrupted definitions of words to judge the past by. And Bundy is a relic of the past in his upbringing.

Pole-Cat on April 27, 2014 at 5:53 PM

I don’t speak PC, either. And I’ve often been vilified for telling the truth as I see it.
I do not care. Truth is truth. And your words are very true, along with Bundy’s, & there is nothing racist in them.